Tag: Taylor Swift Anti-Hero

Taylor Swift’s “Lavender Haze” Video Induces Little More Than Malaise

If the domicile in “Lavender Haze” appears slightly familiar, perhaps it’s because of how similar it looks and feels to the one in “Anti-Hero.” And if the overall “mood palette” looks the same too, it’s because, as Swift stated, “This was the first video I wrote out of the three that have been released, and this one really helped me conceptualize the world and mood of Midnights, like a sultry sleepless 70s fever dream. Hope you like it.” And sure, of course everyone is expected to “like” it—if for no other reason than the fact that Swift opted to cast trans model Laith Ashley De La Cruz as her love interest (who also happens to be a weather forecaster—a nod to the “Karma” lyrics, “The guy on the screen/Coming straight home to me”).

Swift, who has become “pointedly” woke in the years since she abandoned country music (and there really are some shitty songs from the canon of her early work), has been steadfastly building toward this. After all, she was sure to be more “inclusive” with the Black Mirror-esque “Lover” video (during which she also sings about a haze via the lines, “There’s a dazzling haze/A mysterious way about you, dear”) that featured Christian Owens as the lover in question. And then there was the “allyship” of “You Need to Calm Down” (also from the Lover album), which Swift timed for a release during Pride Month. So sure, “tapping into” the trans community was only a matter of time. Forgive one for the “jaded tinge” that has to it, but, it’s somewhat obvious that Swift treats the “minorities” she casts somewhat differently than the more “all-American” men she’s had in her videos. That is to say, she’ll actually kiss those men. For example, in her first video, “Tim McGraw,” Swift wasn’t shy about offering up some kiss action to her co-star, Clayton Collins. Released in 2006, it was clear Swift had a long way to go before becoming “woke”—accordingly, the country twang in her voice at that time has disappeared entirely in favor of “pop voice.”

Elsewhere, she might never have kissed “Drew” in the “Teardrops On My Guitar” video, but probably because he was into some other girl, and that other girl seemed to be more of a beard than anything (this based solely on the casting choice for “Drew”). So maybe he was really just sparing his dear friend Swift the pain of kissing him only to later learn he could never love a woman. In the hoedown sound of the “Our Song” video, there was no room for a man at all. But these are extenuating circumstances that don’t apply to videos like “Lover” and “Lavender Haze,” wherein she prefers touchy “canoodling” to more overt displays of affection, which leads one to call bullshit on her “true acceptance” of the marginalized. It’s a classic case of that “Anti-Hero” lyric, “Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism?” But anyway, apart from the predictability of her casting choices at this point in her political/musical career, “Lavender Haze” is not among her most exciting concepts for a music video.

Once more directed by Swift herself, the video starts off with a number of her beloved “Easter eggs,” including a close-up on a “Mastermind” record with the signs of Sagittarius (Swift’s) and Pisces (Joe Alwyn’s) etched in the constellation artwork. Then there’s the burning incense on the nightstand, which alludes to the “Maroon” lyrics, “When the morning came/We were cleaning incense off your vinyl shelf.” Swift, now sitting up in bed, is in the throes of insomnia, compounded by a literal cloud over her head as the lyrics, “You don’t really read into my melancholia” are said. Unlike Swifties, who read into every mood Swift is willing to showcase. Next to her in bed is De La Cruz, who appears unbothered by Swift’s nocturnal activity as he sleeps through the night in peace. Even when she touches his back and reveals the universe contained within it—yes, we all want to know what drugs she’s on.

In the next instant, she’s lighting a match and we briefly wonder if her country-era persona has taken over and decided to commit a hate crime against a trans person. But no, for whatever reason, the match doesn’t light a fire, but a “lavender haze” (a.k.a. what looks like Gulal powder in purple). As Taylor dances around in the haze, De La Cruz continues to sleep like a log, even when the powdery substance enters his nostrils… but hey, it’s not coke, so why should it wake him?

In the next scene, Swift is inexplicably alone on the couch in a lavender coat—a scene recognizable from many of her promotional photos for Midnights. Because why not kill two birds with one stone by extrapolating some stills from the music video for the album promo? In any case, Swift proves she must have been smoking the good shit on this night as she blows a clock-shaped smoke ring in our face à la The Caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland. After which she crawls on the floor through a suddenly materialized “field” of flowers (lavender ones, of course). Making her way toward the TV where De La Cruz is giving the “Forecast at Midnight” on the screen. Arriving at the TV, Swift is able to split it open to reveal another universe filled with koi fish inside. Again, she must have been smoking the good shit (as only a celebrity can afford).

Another cut to Swift in a lavender-hued pool that looks like the kind one might be able to access at a very expensive spa allows the chanteuse to play up her chastely sexual side. At which time she sings, “I’m damned if I do give a damn what people say.” But of course she does—that’s what the majority of her songs and video concepts have been driven by. Unfortunately, this particular video concept wasn’t driven by the inspiration for the track’s title: Mad Men. Per Swift, “I happened upon the phrase ‘lavender haze’ when I was watching Mad Men. I looked it up because I thought it sounded cool. And it turns out that it’s a common phrase used in the 50s where they would describe being in love. If you’re in the ‘lavender haze,’ then that meant you were in that all-encompassing love glow. And I thought that was really beautiful.” Beautiful enough to ascribe it to what she was going through with Joe Alwyn at the beginning of their relationship, protecting it at all costs from the media (which she still does). As Swift remarked, “I guess, theoretically, when you’re in the ‘lavender haze,’ you’ll do anything to stay there. And not let people bring you down off of that cloud [hence, the presence of some very pronounced clouds in this video]. I think that a lot of people have to deal with this now, not just like ‘public figures,’ because we live in the era of social media, and if the world finds out if you’re in love with somebody they’re going to weigh in on it.”

But Swift ought to be more concerned with an objective person (as opposed to a die-hard Swiftie) weighing in on this video. During which she ironically insists, “No deal/The 1950s shit they want from me,” yet so adores the term “lavender haze,” which originated in the 50s. With this in mind, a more engaging concept would have been to set the video in the 50s at some point, perhaps with a Pleasantville angle that then finds Swift entering the modern world once the haze has ended. Because, although she doesn’t admit it (or want to), that “honeymoon” period is usually over after about a year.

In another non sequitur moment, the scene that follows Swift splitting the screen and being in a lavender pool is a party at the duo’s house that seems intent to look as 70s-era as possible despite this song’s genesis being a direct result of the 50s. The party naturally devolves into a wannabe Holi celebration with more lavender-hued Gulal powder as Swift and her party attendees dance about in a reverie.

The final moments show Swift opening the window in her living room (the party guests and De La Cruz have mysteriously vanished, perhaps all figments of her “fever dream” imagination to begin with) and then pushing the wall down. This causes the domino effect of all four walls falling, pushed back to reveal Swift’s abode has been floating in that lavender, koi fish-filled universe behind the TV screen that she was mesmerized by earlier. Now nestled in a giant cloud that appeared at the center of the erstwhile living room, Swift disappears into it and leaves the world behind. Notably, the fact that her love interest is not in the haze with her speaks to 1) how Swift would never really be with a trans person and 2) how her relationships have enabled her storytelling indulgence to make most of the narrative about her experience.

Swift has also said of her tenure with Alwyn re: the “lavender haze,” [In] my relationship [of] six years we’ve had to dodge weird rumors, tabloid stuff, and we just ignore it. So this song is about the act of ignoring that stuff to protect the real stuff.” And yet, the accompanying video is about the fantastical rather than the real, which leads one to believe that Swift does a lot of manufacturing for the sake of songwriting embellishment. If only she could have “embellished” a more engaging and original video for the song… Anyway, now that this is off one’s chest, Taylor can get it off her desk.

Genna Rivieccio

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January 28, 2023
Sabrina Carpenter’s “nonsense” and Ariana Grande’s “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored”: A Study in Two Types of Alter Ego-Based Narcissism

To further prove that every celebrity is ultimately just in love with themselves, Sabrina Carpenter has released a video for her new single from emails i can’t send, “nonsense.” Which is sure to get a playlist boost from her recent photo appearance—the one at the American Music Awards where she was pictured sandwiched between two very tall, FUPA-parading women—Taylor Swift and GAYLE (who will open for Swift during select dates of the already controversial Eras Tour). But even without their help, “nonsense” was a “pop hit’ (as Carpenter refers to it in the song) already.

A large part of that has to do with something of an Ariana Grande-esque formula (and the way Carpenter “hits the octave”). The one she implemented so well during her thank u, next cycle. An album that was better-promoted with the release of a video for “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored” the same day as the record came out. Showing off her sense of humor at a time when she had just ended her engagement with Pete “Rebound” Davidson, maybe there was a jocular tone to the idea that Grande would try lesbianism next (she is, after all, into dabbling—if her blackfishing is an indication).

So it is that the big “plot twist” of the video is that she’s been more interested in her pony-tailed lookalike, played by Ariel Yasmine, the entire time. The dalliance commences at a club (how very 2000s) wherein Yasmine and her boyfriend, played by Riverdale’s Charles Melton, invite Grande (sporting a blonde coif that’s more in keeping with her Sweetener era) to join them in their dance. This being Los Angeles, Grande isn’t averse to a one-night throuple scenario. And yet, maybe it isn’t just one night. For how else would a blonde-haired Ariana have had time to pull a single white (yes, white) female by emulating Yasmine’s look (itself emulating Ariana’s during that period)? Maybe she was invited to a party at their house on another night after meeting them at the club… or did she go home and dye her hair before showing up at the party—who knows? But the timeline doesn’t feel linear. The point is, Ari has become narcissistically attracted to someone who looks just like her. Her doppelgänger, if you will (a word that often doubles for “alter ego”—usually embodying a darker [or at least slightly more irreverent] persona).

Carpenter decides to take that concept one step further in the Danica Kleinknecht-directed video for “nonsense” by enlisting none other than herself (as opposed to a “mere” lookalike) to play the alter ego. She goes further still by making that alter ego male instead of female. And then there is the context of this duo’s encounter. Despite being twenty-three (as Olivia Rodrigo was so fond of pointing out her “older” age in “drivers license”), there is a more teenaged (or college, at the latest) sensibility to the concept of the setting in lieu of Grande’s more “adult” nightclub backdrop, followed by a lavish house in the Hills. Conversely, in the opening scenes of “nonsense,” we see Carpenter preparing for a house party (seemingly one that she’s throwing) that the boy version of herself, outfitted with a trucker hat that says “Dipshit” on it, also attends. Because, yes, like Ari before her, Carpenter only really has eyes for, well, herself. Something Lady Gaga additionally proved when she showcased her own male alter ego, Jo Calderone.

Whether Carpenter named her “drag king” is unknown, but it’s quite apparent she’s very attracted to him. Even though he comes off like an even worse version of Amanda Bynes doing drag in She’s The Man. Yet somehow, he has the appearance of someone much younger than Carpenter, who he spots from across the room as he exhales a cloud of smoke from his vape.

It doesn’t take long for the two to find a “quiet corner” amid the red Solo cups and impromptu karaoke sessions. Because, really, who hasn’t been attracted to a male or female version of themselves (see: Brad Pitt and Gwyneth Paltrow in the late 90s)? As the two get increasingly drunk, interspersed scenes of Carpenter dancing around and looking at herself in the mirror add to the overall narcissistic motif that Grande also showed us with just as little subtlety in Hannah Lux Davis’ visuals for “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored.”

Carpenter even sounds like Grande in general—and then very specifically… closing “nonsense” with some spoken dialogue that reminds one of Ari’s back-and-forth with Victoria Monét at the end of “monopoly.” Both moments feature gigglingly-stated lines. In Carpenter’s case, it’s the brush-off that this song will never make the cut for the album, laughing, “That one’s not gonna make it.”

Luckily for Carpenter’s fans (and even Grande’s), it did. For it’s just the sort of gushing love song that might prompt one to make out with their reflection in the vanity. Self-love (and sologamy), after all, has never been chicer. Even if shown in the self-deprecating way that Taylor Swift does it with her alter ego in the video for “Anti-Hero.” In which she “sarcastically” remarks, incidentally, on her self-obsession via the lyrics, “Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism?” In contrast to Grande and Carpenter, Swift appears to more openly admit to it with her take on this ostensible “doppelgänger” trend in music videos (regardless of whether that double is a male or female version of oneself).

Genna Rivieccio

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November 25, 2022
Billie Eilish Said “I’m the Problem” Before Taylor Swift and, Historically, That Tends to Track

Perhaps because it’s so unusual to encounter a Gen Zer doing anything either original or “first” (not that anything really can be at this point), listeners have been quick to forget that, earlier this year, Billie Eilish already immortalized the lyrics, “I’m the problem” on her single, “TV,” released in July via her two-track EP, Guitar Songs. While Taylor Swift may have already written “Anti-Hero” at that juncture, the rule goes that whoever releases something before another musician tends to be the “owner” of that lyrical phrase. And yet, Eilish, despite her equitable popularity to Swift in such a short span of time (although the two seem vastly different from a stylistic perspective, the singer-songwriter shtick is prominent in both), has largely been forgotten for helming, “I’m the problem.” That is, ever since “Anti-Hero” inaugurated the barrage of singles that will inevitably be released from Midnights.

Maybe the effortless forgetting of Eilish as the OG “responsibility-taker” for being something of a “problematic” person (in addition to a jobist) stems from how she couldn’t be bothered to note, “Maybe I, maybe I, maybe I’m the problem” in a catchy pop song format the way Taylor has with the chirpier phrase, “It’s me, hi/I’m the problem/It’s me.” Perhaps just going to show that the millennial knows best when it comes to toeing the line between pandering to the generations they’re sandwiched in between. Whereas Gen Z seemingly just wants to burn the whole world to the ground (but is ultimately too apathetic to do so). All while claiming to be “much different” from the millennials they balk at while simultaneously grafting pretty much every pop cultural element from them (except in this anomalous case of Taylor grafting from Billie, unless, of course, the former has documentation [obviously, she does] of the exact date she initially started writing “Anti-Hero”). And yet, not so “different” as to avoid “covert narcissism disguised as altruism,” as Taylor words it. In Eilish’s case, that comes in the form of asking hopefully, “Did you see me on TV?”

The lack of divergence from previous generations of women on Eilish’s part has also been frequently revealed by the “pull” of older men—all while putting out the contradictory message of being “weird” a.k.a. anti-heteronormative. Yet Eilish is perhaps even more heteronormative (which, ironically, “wish you were gay” also corroborates) than Swift if her history of fetishizing “mature” dick is any hint.

And yes, she continues to be “the problem” after dressing up as a baby for Halloween while her older boyfriend, Jesse Rutherford (best known as the lead singer of The Neighbourhood), opted to show up as an old man. Although the two might have thought it was a “cute” way to “poke fun” at their almost eleven-year age gap, it only highlighted how little Eilish actually cares to cater to her own easily outraged generation (in addition to highlighting the retroactive ick factor of one of The Neighbourhood’s biggest songs being called “Daddy Issues”). Something she also made apparent when she appeared on the cover of British Vogue in what amounted to Marilyn drag (and actually, Billie Eilish might have been a better choice for Marilyn in Blonde than Ana de Armas—granted, nothing and no one could have saved that monstrosity). This after building her “brand” on championing the “offbeat”—as Wednesday Addams might in the twenty-first century.

As for Taylor, the extent of her own “experimentation” comes in the form of sampling the “dream pop”/electropop stylings of the 2012 era that the likes of Chvrches, M83 and Phantogram already perfected. But, as Taylor has shown us in ousting Billie with the “I’m the problem” adage, she’s capable of “erasing” anyone she wants to whenever she comes along to perform something with her own musical interpretation of what’s already been done before. Plus, Eilish is more reluctant to admit her wrongdoings/overall frailty on “TV,” only gradually coming to the conclusion at the very end of the song that, “Baby, I, baby, I, baby, I’m the problem.” Taylor, in contrast, is far quicker to take the blame for, well, everything. Especially when it comes to being “too big to hang out” with (just as Lorde noted of herself on “Liability”). And while “TV” is a song that focuses more on the general “sickness of the culture,” “Anti-Hero” is about being overcome by one’s own insecurities and giving in completely to that low self-esteem.

Eilish, instead, appears to have low esteem for everyone else when she offers lyrics like, “The internet’s gone wild watching movie stars on trial/While they’re overturning Roe v. Wade.” However, one notable similarity regarding insecurity that is present on both tracks pertains to weight—apparently a subject that transcends all generational divides in spite of Gen Z’s frequent touting of “body positivity.” While Eilish sings, “I’ll try not to starve myself/Just because you’re mad at me,” Taylor (formerly) showed that insecurity with a scale in the “Anti-Hero” video that reads, “FAT” when she steps onto it. Except, of course, she wasn’t allowed to have her own feelings displayed for long because of the scandalized Gen Z types that would accuse her of being fat-shaming to others.

As for Eilish and her own problematic nature, she’ll take a less direct approach in confronting it, as manifest in the “TV” lyrics, “I’ll be in denial for at least a little while.” The same way Swifties will be about Eilish sonically coining “I’m the problem” before Taylor.

Genna Rivieccio

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November 1, 2022
Don’t Hate Taylor Because She’s Thin And Still Feels Fat: “Anti-Hero” and Its Cacomorphobia Interpretation

For some reason, it was only about two or so seconds of the “Anti-Hero” video that stood out to many viewers. Particularly, let’s say, more zaftig viewers who took one look at the scale that read, “FAT” and said to themselves, “How could she?” Not only because Taylor Swift embodies one of those rather vexing skinny bitches who feigns having to worry about their weight like any other garden-variety fatso (read: most of America), but because, in the present climate, it seemed incredible that she thought she’d be able to get away with it unscathed, innocuous as it may have seemed to her. This perhaps being a product of both her foolishness in thinking that uncensored self-expression is part and parcel of what art is and being surrounded by too many cloying sycophants to be properly forewarned. One would sub out “cloying sychophants” with “skinny people” were it not for the fact that Lena Dunham is one of Swift’s “besties,” and she didn’t seem to take offense.

In the past, Swift has been known for “carousing” with fellow tall, thin people (often referred to as models), most of which were represented in the “Bad Blood” video, including Cara Delevingne, Gigi Hadid and Karlie Kloss. The backlash that her “girl squad” received, however, was also rooted in a public disdain for Swift parading a homogenous standard of beauty. Swift eventually responded to the reaction by remarking, “I never would have imagined that people would have thought, ‘This is a clique that wouldn’t have accepted me if I wanted to be in it.’ Holy shit, that hit me like a ton of bricks.” And yet, for someone whose songwriting is so frequently about being an “outsider,” one would think she could tend to imagine it. But that’s the thing: she’s the type of “outsider” frequently presented in rom-coms of a bygone era. You know, the sort of girl who is only “ugly” because she has glasses and her hair hasn’t yet gotten a blowout. Naturally, Swift wouldn’t and couldn’t see it that way, just recently singing things like, “No one wanted to play with me as a little kid/So I’ve been scheming like a criminal ever since/To make them love me and make it seem effortless” on Midnights.

And one aspect of the “effortlessness” of “making someone” “love” you, in this world of peddling brainwashing ads about how to be “beautiful,” is “keeping fit.” Something Taylor has been made hyper-aware of in her role as a monolithic celebrity, dissected and picked apart as much for her looks as she is for her personal life. Understandably, this would warp her perspective even more than the average self-hating girl. And for those who wish to seek a better, more tasteful insight into that than “Anti-Hero,” it can’t be emphasized enough to listen to and watch the video for Tove Lo’s “Grapefruit.” A track that speaks to the raging sense of body dysmorphia that exists inside so many women. Though, to be more “feminist,” Xtina’s “Beautiful” video also calls it out in men as well. So yes, there is an honesty to what Taylor is portraying on that scale. How, no matter what size we are, we’ve been conditioned to see it as being still too “FAT.” Regardless of simply being a healthy weight.

Alas, even Taylor Swift can no longer have her nice things, namely freedom to express her subjective thoughts and feelings without it being shat upon by people who are ultimately jealous of her figure and enraged by the fact that she doesn’t appreciate it. It’s ironic, of course, that in declaring in the very same video, “It’s me, hi/I’m the problem, it’s me,” Taylor should make good on that assertion by being the “problem” for many an “overweight” person whose own insecurities she tapped into with use of the word “fat,” in addition to conveying it as a source of ultimate fear. This playing into the inherently fatphobic (cacomorphobia, if you prefer) nature of society. One whose “values” Taylor is both a product and purveyor of. So why should she be muzzled when it comes to mentioning how she feels about that? Least of all held responsible for single-handedly eradicating the concept of body-shaming. Something that will never go away. And certainly not with the dominance social media, the premier conduit for comparison and self-loathing, here to stay for the foreseeable future.

Nonetheless, Swift was shamed for her purported body-shaming. To the extent that she actually altered the video almost right away (proving once again that most “artists” of the present are fucking pussies that won’t stand by what they’ve said or done when it’s poked at too much). To this end, in the current era of automatically “erasing” or “deleting” something that causes a backlash, it leaves one to wonder if art—in its undiluted form—can even exist anymore. Not to mention how it highlights that we live in a dystopian-level society that can and will censor at the drop of a hat.

To boot, “making people forget,” as though they’ve been exposed to the neuralyzer from Men in Black, doesn’t truly make the “problem” go away, it just buries it to the point where everyone becomes more passive aggressive in their expression of authentic internal feelings. And, by the way, it bears noting that Men in Black was released at a time when, evidently, the neuralyzer wasn’t as needed. For people are far more sensitive now than they were in 1997. Their delicate sensibilities constantly shot and rattled to the extent that, if they really were using the neuralyzer to have their memories of unwanted portrayals erased, they’d be operating with a practically lobotomized brain at this juncture. With Taylor now being yet another person to wield the ice pick by promptly removing the offending image. In turn, she’s effectively used it on herself as well, manifesting her ism, “I’m the problem, it’s me” by backing down on her own genuine emotions. And no, this not the same as Ye refusing to back down on his genuine “emotions” about Jewish people.

Genna Rivieccio

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October 28, 2022
And By the Way, Taylorella Is Going Out Tonight: “Bejeweled” Riffs On Cinderella With Cameos Galore

As Taylor Swift continues her Midnights blitzkrieg, a steady release of music videos for the album is par for the promotional course. And after only freshly releasing the Honey, I Blew Up the Kid meets Alice in Wonderland “Anti-Hero,” Swift has wasted no time (“midnights” speaking to the tick of the clock and all) in gracing her audience with yet another visual accompaniment—this time for “Bejeweled.” Which she also wrote and directed… yet again.

Riffing on Cinderella because it’s a tale that automatically gets associated with midnight, Taylor fancies herself the cleaning “house wench” of the narrative, scrubbing the floor as her three stepsisters a.k.a. the Haim sisters, Lady Danielle (wants the ring), Lady Este (wants the title) and Lady Alana (wants the d***), traipse in discussing the impending ball. But Lady Danielle laments that, instead of just showing up and being able to look hot, a talent competition has been incorporated into this year’s festivities.

Taylor, literally down at heel scrubbing puke off the floor, then overhears that the winner gets the keys to her own castle. “Taylorella” perks right up as her descriptive caption reads, “House Wench Taylor (wants the castle).” And we all know Swift loves a good castle reference. For example, on “New Romantics,” she sang, “I could build a castle out of all the bricks they threw at me.” Later, on “Call It What You Want,” she lamented, “My castle crumbled overnight” and “They took the crown, but it’s alright.” Then there was the “kingdom” allusion on the Kanye-shading “Look What You Made Me Do,” wherein she says, “I don’t like your kingdom keys, they once belonged to me.”

It’s clear in “Bejeweled” that she’s determined to take them back, along with her independence, even if being tied to Joe Alwyn with an invisible string somewhat detracts from that. And yes, many believe one of the engagement-oriented Easter eggs (that odious term) Swift has planted in the video comes from the mouth of Laura Dern, who plays her stepmother, saying, “I simply adore a proposal. It’s the single-most defining thing a lady could hope to achieve in her lifetime.”

After her stepmother and stepsisters continue to prattle on about how she can’t go to the ball, dropping in other Swiftian keywords like “exile” and “snake,” Taylorella waits for them to leave before breaking the fourth wall and smiling at the audience. A knowing smirk that infers the “Bejeweled” lyric, “And by the way, I’m goin’ out tonight.” That she is, as Taylorella enters a magically-appearing elevator (of the ilk that reminds the viewer of the one featured in Dua Lipa’s “Levitating” video with DaBaby… before he was briefly cancelled for making homophobic comments) after a stopwatch descends into her hand ticking off seconds beneath the words “exile ends.”

All at once in a bejeweled cape, Taylorella happily enters the elevator and hits the number three button, just one of many hints that have prompted fans to determine she next plans to re-record her third album, Speak Now (not to be confused with Lindsay Lohan’s far more culturally impactful Speak). Taken to a room that looks like something out of a Yayoi Kusama exhibit, it’s filled with nothing but jewels (both on the floor as a pathway and suspended in mid-air) as Taylorella walks across them like Jesus walking on water (and yes, many do view Swift with his level of worship).

Back on the art deco elevator, Taylorella then heads to the fifth floor, where, of all people, Dita Von Teese awaits. Citing her as one of the most iconic performers in an interview with Jimmy Fallon, Swift accordingly lists her as the “Fairy Goddess” in the credits, taking lessons on how to execute her signature “The Martini Glass” performance in a scene that is peak “women supporting women.” Once she apprehends the arcane knowledge of burlesque, Taylorella takes the elevator to the thirteenth floor (yet another number rife with meaning for the chanteuse). This is where the ball awaits, and where she will showcase her newfound talent for the Queen and the Prince.

Against a backdrop of cogs and wheels, Taylorella herself sits on a clock in bejeweled burlesque attire, taking the spotlight at the fête—much to the dismay of her stepsisters. Watching from the sidelines is Pat McGrath as “Queen Pat,” with the caption, “Queen Pat was impressed. Prince Jack [of course, played by none other than Swift’s bitch, Jack Antonoff] was forced to propose to House Wench Taylor.”

Posing next to Prince Jack with her giant key to her very own castle, Taylorella then goes poof as the additional caption needlessly explains, “She ghosted. But kept the castle.” This written as Taylorella, looking more Bridgerton than Cinderella, walks out on the balcony of her new “pad” to witness the sight of dragons breathing fire at the towers. The implication being that the outside world is still trying to tear down her perfect kingdom—or is it that they’re now “on her side” and protecting it? Only time will tell, but knowing the “pratfalls” of being a celebrity, it’s likely the former.

Genna Rivieccio

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October 26, 2022
Honey, I Blew Up the Taylor in Wonderland: “Anti-Hero” Video Shows Swift Being Too Big For This World

After directing the aggressively white and heteronormative “All Too Well (Taylor’s Version),” Taylor Swift made it clear that she had plenty of other future directorial (and screenwriting) intentions in mind. Whether that will ultimately lead to a feature-length movie remains to be seen, but, for the time being, continuing to direct her own music videos is a good way to “flex the muscle” in the directing field. And perhaps she was watching a lot of Michel Gondry films—followed by Honey, I Blew Up the Kid and Alice in Wonderland—when she came up with the visual concepts behind her first single from Midnights, “Anti-hero.” For there is a calculatedly surreal quality to the narrative.

One that opens on Swift’s back to the camera as the caption beneath “Anti-Hero” is sure to announce, “Written & Directed by Taylor Swift.” As she sits at the kitchen table (presumably around the midnight hour—since “midnights become [her] afternoons”), she proceeds to cut open one of the sunny-side up eggs on her plate that suddenly leaks glitter. And, to be honest, such a visual is patently ripped off from the Kesha playbook. Only slightly unnerved by the vision, it is the appearance of several “ghosts” in sheets (think: A Ghost Story) that causes her to truly freak out as she tries to call for help from her landline (this just being part of the many 70s aesthetics from the Midnights era), only to find the cord is cut. Much like the thin thread of her sanity as she runs into another corner of her house to hide from the “specters” that won’t leave her alone.

Indeed, ghost imagery is mentioned a few times on Midnights, with one notable instance being on “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve” when she sings, “And now that I’m grown, I’m scared of ghosts.” Even sheet-covered ones that wouldn’t make Lydia Deetz so much as flinch. Another standout lyric that opens the track is, “I have this thing where I get older/But just never wiser.” Which could be part of the reason why she refuses to branch out from collaborating with Jack Antonoff.

When she finally goes to open the front door as a means to run out and escape, she sees the “vampier” version of herself standing before her with the greeting, “It’s me.” The Insomniac Taylor sings the “hi” part before “Devious” Taylor continues, “I’m the problem, it’s me.” Letting this version of her “worst” self in, Insomniac Taylor starts to let Devious Taylor influence all her thoughts and feelings as they do shots together and Insomniac Taylor takes down notes from the lesson plan Devious Taylor wants to impart: “Everyone Will Betray You.” This being, of course, a philosophy that feeds Insomniac Taylor’s trust issues.

The next scene is where things really meld the plot points of Honey, I Blew Up the Kid and Alice in Wonderland as a giant Swift peers in on a dinner party of “friends” looking like she just consumed one of the same “Eat Me” cakes as Alice. Despite the incongruity of her oversized appearance, she tries to “act naturally” while the lyrics, “Too big to hang out [here, one is reminded of Lorde’s own fame-lamenting lyrics on “Liability”], slowly lurching toward your favorite city/Pierced through the heart, but never killed” play in the background. She then, quelle surprise, gets shot in the chest with an arrow (for she loves that “The Archer” imagery). As is to be expected, her wound bleeds glitter (as Kesha’s would). Then, as though fully surrendering to her bad reputation, she pulls the tablecloth off in one sweep and sends everyone running in fear, left by herself to eat and imbibe tiny food and drinks.

Continuing to hang out with Devious Taylor (the “true” anti-hero within) doesn’t do much to help her self-esteem either as she’s pushed off the bed they’re jumping on together and judged harshly by Devious Tay when the scale that Insomniac Tay steps on informs her simply, “FAT.” Because, yes, even thin girls like Taylor have body image issues (but for something more authentic on that matter, one is best turning to Tove Lo’s “Grapefruit” and its accompanying video).

Wanting to convey to viewers the full weight (no body image pun intended) of her directorial cachet, Swift is then certain to include a dialogue-laden segment that ties into her Knives Out-grafting plot in the lyrics, “I have this dream my daughter-in-law kills me for the money/She thinks I left them in the will/The family gathers ’round and reads it/And then someone screams out/‘She’s laughing up at us from hell.’” This, in its own way, is one of the most candid statements about fame, and the highly specific fear that many celebrities must “secretly” have when entering into the unbreakable contract of becoming a parent. For can a child of such a person ever “love” their money-bags progenitor for pure reasons? Maybe that’s part of why Taylor has yet to commit to having one.

It would certainly seem like a nightmare based on the will-reading scenario Taylor has come up with, featuring John Early as Chad, Mary Elizabeth Ellis as Kimber and Mike Birbiglia as Preston a.k.a. her money-grubbing children who get up in arms that she’s instructed her beach house should be turned into a cat sanctuary (a large portrait of “Old Taylor” with a gaggle of cats serving as the “in memoriam” photo next to the flower display). Chad refuses to believe that, in contrast, she’s bequeathed only thirteen cents each to her progeny, insisting she’s doing what she always does: leaving a secret hidden message in the will that would give them something more. But the asterisk added from Swift herself is, “P.S. There is no secret encoded message that means something else. Love, Taylor.”

Accusing Chad of being responsible for this lack of inheritance after “trading in on Mom’s name” for most of his life (e.g., a book called Growing Up Swift and a podcast called Life Comes At You Swiftly), he bites back that Preston is constantly using Mom’s name at the country club and that Kimber is wearing her clothes right now. Kimber tries to say, “No I’m not,” but Preston backs up Chad with the citation, “That’s from Fearless Tour 2009.”

As the bickering goes on, we transition back to “reality”—back to that house where Insomniac Taylor must dwell with all of her insecurities and paranoias. And with Devious Taylor… who pops up all giant to look at Insomniac Taylor from below as she’s drinking wine on the rooftop. As the two then sit side by side (now scaled to the same size), a third, even more giant Taylor than before proceeds to walk down the street toward them.

The other two appear welcoming to this ramped-up grandiose spectacle version of themselves, offering their tiny-in-ultra-giant-Taylor’s-hands bottle of wine to her. Because, if anything is taken away from this video, it’s the suggestion that there’s a reason why so many musicians end up with a drinking problem. The “too big for this world” aspect of her persona that’s being played up ultimately speaking to how Swift often grapples with not being seen as a real person, but rather, as an “entity.” And surely, “entities” are immune to such regular people things as cirrhosis.

Genna Rivieccio

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October 22, 2022
Innovation Stalls on Midnights As Taylor Swift Does A Lot of 2012-Era Musical Recycling While Joe Alwyn Remains Her Eternal Muse

While most insomniacs would settle for watching TV all night, Taylor Swift has shown us yet again just how “Type A” she can be by using some of her many sleepless nights for productivity purposes. Resulting in what is now her tenth album, Midnights. And yes, ten studio albums put out over the course of sixteen years is very impressive indeed (not to mention the work put into her re-recordings thus far). It puts Swift closely behind Madonna, who started all the way back in 1983, yet “only” has fourteen studio albums (fifteen, for those who want to include I’m Breathless). Rihanna might have one-upped Swift if she had kept up the pace of releasing an album a year (skipping a release just once in 2008 and then waiting four years in between Unapologetic and Anti), but, no, she had to gravitate toward the fashion and beauty industry instead. Lana Del Rey is the only who comes close to Swift’s prolificness, having almost the same number of records out despite having gotten her first official record release (Born to Die) six years after Swift’s.

Maybe that’s part of why Swift felt the necessity to include her most comparable contemporary on this record, the only feature on the entire thing. But before we get to that, Swift starts us off with a very Harry Styles-esque tone and tempo (they did date, after all) called “Lavender Haze.” This being a title Swift grabbed when she heard it in a line from Mad Men and then confirmed that it was a popular turn of phrase in the 50s and early 60s. As a song that explores wanting to avoid having to deal with any of the media blitzkrieg that comes with someone of her fame level being in a relationship, she insists upon remaining in the lavender haze of a new love and its honeymoon period at all costs. Saying, “Get it off your chest/Get it off my desk” in that tone that reminds one of her saying, “Call it what you want, yeah,” Taylor indicates that she doesn’t care about the media’s bid for virality in dissecting her life. All she wants is to stay in her bliss. It’s therefore a song that proves you can be any age and get caught up in the googly-eyed version romance paraded in films and books, but the problems of adulthood infecting that kind of youthful outlook always tend to get in the way sooner or later.

“Maroon” subsequently continues the color palette motif (something Lana Del Rey is also fond of). Musically disparate from anything she’s ever done, it’s a sound that itself has been done by many before her. Which brings us to the fact that Midnights has somewhat stalled Swift’s thirst for something like innovation. Just as Del Rey, she’s started to get too comfortable in the familiar formulas provided by Jack Antonoff, who himself reached a peak with the sound on Midnights via his own band Fun’s 2012 record, Some Nights (which not only reminds one of the title Midnights, but also has a similar album cover involving a lighter), featuring the seminal single, “We Are Young.”

Musical genres come in cycles, that’s no secret. And the only person who was ever usually ahead of the curve on bringing those trends to the masses was Madonna (except starting in 2008, when she enlisted Timbaland, Pharrell and Justin Timberlake as producers on Hard Candy). Taylor herself has followed musical trends of the moment for most of her career, going the standard route of being a country star transitioning to pop (as Shania Twain and Faith Hill did). Even folklore and evermore were albums that tapped into a moment, speaking to the “stay home” laze of the pandemic era that Swift interpreted as “cottagecore.” Midnights seeks to not only shatter that era with 70s-inspired “going out” aesthetics, but also delves further back into the period when Swift was having her original success with Red in 2012. At that time, other acts like M83, Chvrches, Sleigh Bells and Phantogram were suffusing the landscape with the electropop/synth electronic sound that Swift eschewed for her careful treading along the line between country and pop.

Nonetheless, Swift lends her signature songwriting style involving lament to what has already been a well-established musical trope from ten years ago. As a requisite “what might have been” song about a former lover, “Maroon” addresses one of the five themes Swift said inspired the record: self-hatred, revenge fantasies, “wondering what might have been,” falling in love and “falling apart.”

In “Maroon,” a little bit of all five categories are embodied as she describes, “I wake with your memory over me/That’s a real fucking legacy, legacy (it was maroon)/And I wake with your memory over me/That’s a real fucking legacy to leave.” Luckily for the man she’s railing against in this song, the only person she hates more than him is herself, it would seem. At least, if the self-deprecating “Anti-Hero” is something to go by. This track, too, remains up-tempo and 80s-tinged as Swift rues, “It’s me/I’m the problem, it’s me.” Declaring, “It’s me” in that way she once said, “It’s you” on Lover’s “Cruel Summer.”

She provides one of her most evocative verses of the record when she adds, “Sometimes, I feel like everybody is a sexy baby/And I’m a monster on the hill/Too big to hang out, slowly lurching toward your favorite city/Pierced through the heart, but never killed.” Lana Del Rey doesn’t seem to mind, willingly collaborating on the next song, “Snow on the Beach.” Alas, it is rather underwhelming as a musical marriage, with Taylor monopolizing all the vocals and Lana disappearing into the background (she got far more play in her collab with two other major pop stars, Ariana Grande and Miley Cyrus). And, considering all the sexual tension between the two in terms of how much they orbit one another and echo each other’s songwriting style, maybe it was to be expected that this track would be an anticlimax.

Even the lyrics are somewhat reaching in terms of a “trying too hard” to be poetic bent, with Swift and Del Rey noting, “And it’s like snow at the beach/Weird, but fucking beautiful/Flying in a dream/Stars by the pocketful/You wanting me.” At the very least, Swift offers her best analogy since, “I come back stronger than a 90s trend,” with, “Now I’m all for you, like Janet.”

Going back to her more country twang (think: the Fearless era), “You’re on Your Own, Kid” shows us that Swift still has the Lana songwriting technique on her mind as she wields Del Rey’s favorite season to reference in the intro line, “Summer went away, still the yearning stays.” With a “tis the damn season” aura in its storytelling, Swift recounts, “I gave my blood, sweat, and tears for this/I hosted parties and starved my body/Like I’d be saved by a perfect kiss/The jokes weren’t funny, I took the money/My friends from home don’t know what to say/I looked around in a blood-soaked gown.” That latter image being an undeniable allusion to Carrie. A character that even tall, blonde and thin Swift could relate to as she was ostracized by the people in her school. Sort of like everyone walking off the dance floor at Christina Aguilera’s prom when the DJ played “Genie in a Bottle.”

Realizing that she never should have looked to someone else for salvation or validation anyway, she comes to the conclusion, “You’re on your own, kid/Yeah, you can face this/You’re on your own, kid/You always have been.” The “kid” part coming across like it was condescending inspiration from Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca.

Using a vocoder to introduce the lyrics on “Midnight Rain” (because this record obviously needs to have a song with the album’s title somewhere in it), it’s the only sonic moment that doesn’t seem entirely generic as Swift proceeds to revert to her folklore/evermore narrative vibe (think: “The Last American Dynasty”). And, as was the case during “You’re On Your Own, Kid,” Swift reflects on small-town life and ultimately escaping it, this being a rumination, yet again, on the “what might have been” theme. So it is that Swift states, “My town was a wasteland/Full of cages, full of fences/Pageant queens and big pretenders/But for some, it was paradise.” “Some” like the boy she has “no choice” but to leave in order to pursue her big dreams in the big city. And yet, once she’s achieved her fame goals, she can’t help but “peer through a window/A deep portal, time travel/All the love we unravel/And the life I gave away/‘Cause he was sunshine, I was midnight rain.” But surely Swift would have thought the opposite if she had given up her career ambitions to play the little wife. Even so, in her late-night hours, she has to admit, “I guess sometimes we all get/Some kind of haunted, some kind of haunted/And I never think of him/Except on midnights like this.”

Commencing with a somewhat paltry imitation of Avril Lavigne’s “Sk8r Boi”-style “portrait-painting,” “Question…?” describes, “Good girl/Sad boy/Big city/Wrong choices.” The intro has a brief tinge of “Blank Space” with the same light instrumentation that also uses “I remember” from “Out of the Woods.” A track about humiliation and ill communication, it’s one of the most deviating from a lyrical perspective. So, too, is “Vigilante Shit,” which continues her wannabe Lana angle (this time from an Ultraviolence era perspective, which, to re-emphasize the time period Swift is mirroring sonically, was released in 2013). Most notably when Swift wields the line, “Draw the cat eye, sharp enough to kill a man.” It glistens among all the rest of the tracks, with a moodier, more visceral backdrop than most of the other upbeat electro rhythms.

Almost as “glistening” but not quite is a song about a girl who loses her shine by putting all her self-worth into the hands of a man. And yes, “Bejeweled” provides some of Tay’s most “poetic” lyrics on Midnights. Including isms like, “Didn’t notice you walkin’ all over my peace of mind/In the shoes I gave you as a present” and “Familiarity breeds contempt/So put me in the basement/When I want the penthouse of your heart.” In the end, she decides, “What’s a girl gonna do? A diamond’s gotta shine.” That it does—which she already made vaguely clear on “mirrorball.”

Despite now contributing to the cultural lexicon with her own “Labyrinth,” it is the movie of the same name that will forever reign supreme. Plus, it’s a bit douchey to pre-quote oneself. Regardless, Taylor did just that with “Labyrinth” by incorporating the lyrics, “Breathe in, breathe through, breathe deep, breathe out” into her commencement speech earlier this year at NYU. And even though such words might sound like part of a self-help book, the song is actually yet another ode to Joe Alwyn saving her from the sour taste (something Olivia Rodrigo knows about) that had lingered in her mouth from romances past. Accordingly, she sings, “Uh-oh, I’m fallin’ in love/Oh no, I’m fallin’ in love again/Oh, I’m fallin’ in love/I thought the plane was goin’ down/How’d you turn it right around?” Taylor will likely find that this metaphor is going to come back to bite her in the ass the next time there’s a major plane crash. Plus, being such a “New Yorker” nowadays, you’d think she’d know it’s still “too soon” after 9/11 to talk about plane crashes so casually.

Gears shift on the maudlin love theme with “Karma.” Never mind that MARINA already had an untouchable song called “Karma” from 2019’s Love + Fear, Taylor has decided to create her own edition. Where MARINA’s was inspired by the #MeToo movement, and particularly Harvey Weinstein, Swift opts, as usual, to make things more specifically about herself and go for Scooter Braun’s jugular. What’s more, she borrows from another electropop band that had a moment in the 00s, CSS, by saying, “Karma is my boyfriend.” CSS already used that metaphor to greater perfection with the lyric, “Music is my boyfriend” (which is how Taylor sounds when she replaces “music” with “karma”) on the single, “Music Is My Hot Hot Sex.”

Elsewhere, she uses highly specific details to allude to the fact that she’s talking about Braun as she accuses, “Spider boy, king of thieves/Weave your little webs of opacity/My pennies made your crown/Trick me once, trick me twice/Don’t you know that cash ain’t the only price?/It’s coming back around.” At the same time, this song also applies more than ever to Swift’s beef with Ye (formerly Kanye) that started all those years ago in 2009. And yes, Swift has definitely won that war as we watch Ye daily fall further from “grace.”

On the next track, again one must say: never mind that Florence + the Machine already had an untouchable song called “Sweet Nothing” with Calvin Harris (in, quelle coincidence, 2012), Swift wants to have one too. Hers being more slowed down and stripped back. All for the purposes of, what a shock, providing a bathetic homage to Alwyn as she croons, “I found myself a-running home to your sweet nothings/Outside they’re push and shoving/You’re in the kitchen humming/All that you ever wanted from me was nothing.”

Swift ramps up her Alwyn prose a notch on “Mastermind,” which allows her to spotlight her inner creep as she freely admits things like, “I laid the groundwork, and then/Just like clockwork/The dominoes cascaded in the line/What if I told you I’m a mastermind?/And now you’re minе/It was all by design.” Well, if one were Alwyn, maybe they would quote Taylor back to her by saying, “You need to calm down.”

In another verse, Swift plays up her “loser” days as an unknown youth, lamenting, “No one wanted to play with me as a little kid/So I’ve been scheming like a criminal ever since/To make them love me and make it seem effortless.” Naturally, it’s anything but—and this is part of why Swift has been called “calculated” so many times throughout her career. But maybe it was all worth it for Swift to be able to come up with a riposte like, “This is the first time I’ve felt the need to confess/And I swear I’m only cryptic and Machiavellian/‘Cause I care.” The ultimate curse, but one that many a Sagittarian is burdened with while pretending not to be.

While the standard edition of the album stops here, the “3am Edition” persists with “The Great War.” Once upon a time, that was what World War I was called, with the assumption that there wouldn’t be a second one. Now, Swift seems to be putting out this record at a moment when WWIII feels like an inevitability. Hence, the war metaphor being only too real despite most people of the millennial and Gen Z set only “experiencing” anything like battle in their video games. As she did on Lover’s “Afterglow,” Swift speaks of a great peace that will come after a great (relationship) war, assuring, “All that bloodshed, crimson clover/Uh-huh, the bombs were close and/My hand was the one you reached for/All throughout the Great War/Always remember/Uh-huh, the burning embers/I vowed not to fight anymore/If we survived the Great War.”

“Bigger Than the Whole Sky” continues the theme of “The Great War,” indicating a brutal, destitute aftermath as Swift sings softly, “No words appear before me in the aftermath/Salt streams out my eyes and into my ears/Every single thing I touch becomes sick with sadness/‘Cause it’s all over now, all out to sea.” A line like that is ripe with the “we could have had it all” sorrow that pervades so much of Midnights.

And, again ruminating on that theme, she inserts into the chorus, “What could’ve been, would’ve been/What should’ve been you/What could’ve been, would’ve been you.” Such lyrics also set things up for a later song called “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve.”

But not before “Paris.” Indeed, not one to shy away from cliches, perhaps it was overdue for Swift to have a song named after the “City of Love” (though it’s really the City of Light). But Edith Piaf-flavored this number is not as the up-tempo rhythms of earlier on the record return for Swift to croon, “Drew a map on your bedroom ceiling/No, I didn’t see the news/‘Cause we were somewhere else/Stumbled down pretend alleyways, cheap wine/Make believe it’s champagne I was taken by the view/Like we were in Paris, oh.”

Here it’s clear she’s using the city as an imaginary escape hatch (even though she could definitely just take her overused private jet there if she wanted to). Far from the scrutiny and as a place where people—even famous ones—assume they can remain in the “lavender haze” previously mentioned on the first track. So it is that Swift insists her and Alwyn’s love can stay protected if they just “fly over bullshit (as Beyoncé phrases it on “Alien Superstar”). If they just keep pretending “like we were somewhere else/Like we were in Paris.” The power of “pure imagination” also applies when interpreting the flashing lights of paparazzi cameras as nothing more that the shimmering lights of the Eiffel Tower (dimmed much earlier in the night now as a result of the energy crisis that won’t affect Swift). Thus, the lyric, “Let the only flashing lights/Be the tower at midnight.”

As one of only three tracks on Midnights produced by Aaron Dessner, “High Infidelity” possesses a different tincture than the others crafted by Antonoff. Yet not different in the sense of Swift bringing up still another relationship past, this time likely referring to her transition from Calvin Harris to Tom Hiddleston circa 2016. With a retro video game-esque sound faintly punctuating the music in the background, Swift speaks directly to someone “like” Harris when she says, “You know there’s many different ways/That you can kill the one you love/The slowest way is never loving them enough.” The mention of the date April 29th also happens to be when “This Is What You Came For” was released. A.k.a. the single that prompted Harris to snap at his ex on Twitter with such venoms as, “I know you’re off tour and you need someone new to try and bury like Katy ETC but I’m not that guy, sorry.” This being a result of the real songwriter behind “This Is What You Came For”—Swift—being unveiled.

Call it just another relationship malfunction. Or “Glitch”—a song that refers to Tay’s enduring romance with Alwyn as a “glitch in the matrix” that the system never thought was possible or would last. As the briefest little ditty on Midnights at two minutes and twenty-eight seconds, Swift makes it count with “sweet nothings” like, “But it’s been two-thousand one-hundred and ninety days of our love blackout (our love is blacking out)/The system’s breaking down.” That number of days adding up to, you guessed it, the six years Swift and Alwyn have been together.

And, having been together that long, it’s no wonder Swift has to keep dipping back into her arsenal of exes for additional inspiration. As is the case on “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve,” which further hits us over the head with Swift’s preferred motif of the record: regret about a relationship. In this instance, she doesn’t wonder what might have been, but only wishes it had never been. The likely inspiration being John Mayer, as she mentions her age during this dalliance as nineteen (Lana, too, calls out being nineteen in “White Dress”—must be something affecting about that age). And, just as Jessica Simpson, Taylor would end up ruing the day she ever got into Mayer’s clutches, bemoaning, “God rest my soul I miss who I used to be/The tomb won’t close/Stained glass windows in my mind/I regret you all the time/I can’t let this go, I fight with you in my sleep” (this last line harkening back to the midnights/insomniac theme). That other beloved topic, revenge, is also peppered in with the lines, “Living for the thrill of hitting you where it hurts/Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first.” So it looks like Jake Gyllenhaal is only a runner-up to Mayer’s supreme level of dickishness.

Sounding slightly like a romantic 80s ballad, the true closer of Midnights is “Dear Reader”—though, of course, what she really means is “Dear Listener.” Seeming to have enjoyed her life advice-giving status as a commencement speaker, she clearly had such a speech in mind when she wrote this track. For it offers “counsel” on how to live one’s life, mostly by staying true to oneself—yet also “bending” when necessary. As Jane Eyre did. And maybe that’s why Swift opted to reference Charlotte Brontë’s literary opus with the song’s title, famously taken from the mouth of the eponymous character when she announces, “Dear reader, I married him” (perhaps foreshadowing her own marriage to Alwyn). Even after the “him” in question goes blind in the fire, placing Eyre in the role of caretaker (but isn’t that what all women end up becoming when they consent to the part of “wife”?).

Painting herself as a potentially unreliable narrator when she says, “Never take advice from someone who’s falling apart,” Swift still does her best to sound cocksure when she adds, “And if you don’t recognize yourself/That means you did it right.” Even though, just a moment ago in the song that preceded this, she asserts, “I miss who I used to be.” This dichotomy, this push-and-pull between wanting to “remain as one is” while also wanting to burst out of the proverbial chrysalis is what invades Midnights. For we can hear Swift grappling with attempts at being “avant-garde” sonically (you know, for someone who still “has to be” commercial), while staying as true as she can be to the girl she’s always been, therefore the musical and lyrical style (lovelorn, vengeful, regretful, etc.) she’s always relied upon. Which is something of a shame in that someone at her height could release anything at this point without worry of losing her devotees.

To put it this way, Midnights is not Swift turning her back on the mainstream in any way remotely like what, say, Madonna did with Erotica thirty years ago (this particular album being released almost exactly the same day as Midnights, on October 20th). And if Swift is the artist she seems to want to be, more risk-taking is needed for future records. Something that goes beyond just another “solid win.”

Genna Rivieccio

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October 21, 2022